🇲🇽 Mexico · Central Mexico
Toluca de Lerdo, capital of the State of México, is the highest city in Mexico (over 2,600 meters above sea level) and a brisk, busy place a little over an hour from Mexico City. Its most famous attraction is the Cosmovitral, a spectacular botanical garden set inside an old art nouveau market whose walls and ceilings are immense stained-glass panels, a monumental artwork unlike any other in the country.
Toluca combines its colonial past with its present as an industrial and administrative capital. It keeps a downtown with its famous arcades (among the longest in Mexico), churches, museums and markets, and it's celebrated for its food: it's the birthplace of green and red chorizo and of the famous 'tacos de plaza', as well as the region's sweets and rompope. On its doorstep rises the majestic Nevado de Toluca (Xinantécatl), a volcano with lakes in its crater.
This guide covers the essentials of Toluca: the Cosmovitral and the arcades, the museums and churches downtown, the local food and the excursion to the Nevado de Toluca. It's a practical destination close to the capital, ideal for a one- or two-day getaway, with the chance to combine city, culture, flavors and high-mountain nature.
Toluca sits in a high valley inhabited since pre-Hispanic times by the Matlatzinca and other peoples, later absorbed into Mexica rule. After the conquest it grew as a colonial town around the valley's farming and trade. In the 19th century it became the capital of the State of México and took the addition 'de Lerdo' in honor of Miguel Lerdo de Tejada. Today it's an industrial and cultural capital, famous for the Cosmovitral. The full history is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The province that surrounds the capital: land of Teotihuacan, the 'City of the Gods', of the Matlatzinca valley of Toluca, of the lakeside retreat of Valle de Bravo and of the monarch butterfly sanctuaries.
Read the history of State of Mexico →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
At over 2,600 meters of altitude, in Mexico's highest capital city, the air bites differently. Toluca sits in a wide high valley swept by cold winds and dominated by a silhouette impossible to ignore: the Xinantécatl, the volcano we now call the Nevado de Toluca, with its twin lakes hidden in the crater. That snow-covered giant presided over life in the valley long before any city existed, and presides over it still.
The Toluca valley was inhabited from pre-Hispanic times by various peoples, chief among them the Matlatzinca, alongside Otomi, Mazahua and Nahua groups. The Matlatzinca developed a culture of their own and important cities —such as Teotenango, today an archaeological site— making use of the valley's fertile land and its lakes and marshes. It was a coveted region for its strategic position, a crossroads between the Central Highlands and the lands to the west. In the 15th century the powerful Mexica (Aztec) empire subdued the valley and drew its peoples into its tribute system, though the area never stopped being a restless frontier, very close to the territory of the Purépecha of Michoacán, Tenochtitlan's great rivals whom the Mexica never managed to conquer.
The name 'Toluca' comes from Nahuatl and is usually linked to Tollocan, 'place where the god Tolo is' or 'place of Tolotzin', and to the idea of a bowed head. The volcano's name, Xinantécatl, has been read as 'naked man' or 'naked lord'; for the peoples of the valley it was a sacred mountain, home to deities of water and rain, and the lakes in its crater were a place of offerings: archaeologists have recovered from the bottom of those icy waters ritual objects of copal, wood and stone left there by the ancient inhabitants.
After the conquest of Tenochtitlan in 1521, the Toluca valley was incorporated into New Spain, and a good part of it ended up, very significantly, in the hands of Hernán Cortés himself: these lands formed part of the Marquesado del Valle de Oaxaca, the vast estate the Crown granted to the conquistador and his descendants. Toluca was one of the head towns of that marquisate, which shaped its development for centuries.
The fertility of the valley's land and its closeness to Mexico City turned the region into an important farming and livestock area, a kind of granary and supplier for the viceregal capital: from here came maize, wheat, pigs and, very soon, the products that would make Toluca famous, such as chorizo and cured meats, an inheritance from pig farming and the techniques brought by the Spanish. The settlement grew as a colonial town around farming and trade, with the founding of churches and convents and an orderly street grid. Evangelization was carried out mainly by the Franciscans.
The cold climate and the altitude shaped Toluca's character: crops adapted to the height, hearty cooking designed for the cold, and an atmosphere different from that of the warm lands around it. Through the colonial period, the town consolidated its role as the center of the valley and a waypoint for the trade moving between the capital and the western and southern regions of the viceroyalty.
The 19th century brought Toluca its consecration as a capital. After Independence and the organization of the country as a federal republic, the State of México was constituted as one of the largest and most populated entities, and its capital kept moving until, in 1830, Toluca was established as the state's definitive capital, taking on the role of political and administrative center of an enormous territory (from which other states and Mexico City itself would in time be carved out).
In homage to Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada —president of Mexico in the 1870s— and his brother Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, a prominent liberal politician of the Reform, the city added 'de Lerdo' to its name, officially becoming Toluca de Lerdo. During the Porfiriato, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the city went through a French-influenced period of modernization: public buildings, theaters, markets and the famous arcades went up, and the railway arrived. From that era comes the great art nouveau market, opened in 1909-1910, which many decades later would be turned into the Cosmovitral.
Through the 20th century, Toluca grew fast as the capital of an increasingly industrialized and populated state. Its closeness to Mexico City and the creation of large industrial zones turned it into an important economic hub, with factories, breweries and car plants, while its metropolitan area spread over neighboring municipalities such as Metepec, Zinacantepec and Lerma.
The cultural landmark that defines contemporary Toluca was born from a bold idea: to turn an old market into one of the largest stained-glass works in the world. The early 20th-century art nouveau building, which for decades housed the 16 de Septiembre market, fell into disuse, and in the 1970s the decision was taken to convert it into a botanical garden. To clothe its walls and ceiling, the State of México artist Leopoldo Flores was called in, and between 1978 and 1980 he directed the creation of a monumental stained-glass work: more than 3,000 square meters of colored glass brought from different countries, assembled into 48 panels.
The ensemble, which Flores titled 'Universo' or 'El hombre y el cosmos', is dominated by the figure of the 'Hombre Sol' (Sun Man), an incandescent human with open arms, in tension with the 'Hombre Universo': a representation of duality, of struggle and of the human relationship with the cosmos. The light passing through the glass changes with every hour of the day and every season, so the inside of the botanical garden never looks the same twice. The 'Hombre Sol' is considered the largest non-religious stained-glass work in the world, and the Cosmovitral became the city's great artistic symbol, opened as the Cosmovitral Jardín Botánico in 1980.
Leopoldo Flores (1934-2016), born in Tenancingo, in the State of México itself, was one of the great State of México artists of the 20th century, with work spanning murals, land art and painting, but it's the Cosmovitral that made him immortal. Today, watching sunrise or sunset among that glass, surrounded by plants from all over the world, is the essential Toluca experience.
Today Toluca de Lerdo is a dynamic, large capital, the heart of a metropolitan area of more than two million people and one of the most important industrial, administrative and educational areas in central Mexico. Its closeness to Mexico City —reinforced by the El Insurgente interurban train, which links them in under an hour— pulls it ever further into the great economic corridor of the Highlands.
But beyond its industrial face, Toluca keeps a historic center with personality: the famous arcades, among the longest in Mexico, with their sweet shops and their rompope; the Cathedral and the squares; its museums and, of course, the Cosmovitral. And above all it keeps a powerful culinary identity: Toluca is the birthplace of green and red chorizo, of longaniza, of 'obispo' and of the famous tacos de plaza, as well as crystallized sweets and rompope; eating at the Mercado 16 de Septiembre is one of the best reasons to visit.
And on its doorstep stands the Nevado de Toluca, the country's fourth highest peak (4,680 m), now protected as a Flora and Fauna Protection Area, with its Sun and Moon lakes in the crater, a goal for mountaineers and nature lovers. Between its Matlatzinca and Mexica inheritance, the legacy of the Marquesado, Porfirian modernization, the art of Leopoldo Flores and its present as an industrial capital, Toluca combines history, art, flavor and high-mountain nature on the roof of the Central Highlands.